The most important changes in the international ECC and CPR guidelines 2000

Many people involved with resuscitation have specific interests and enthusiasm. They will review the new guidelines to see how their favorite interventions fared. This essay lists a number of the new guidelines that merit special attention: support for family presence at resuscitations, pronouncing death at the scene rather than after futile transport efforts, honoring advance directives, comparable effectiveness of bag-mask ventilation versus tracheal intubation, revision of compression rates and compression-ventilation ratios, and devices to confirm tracheal intubation and prevent tube dislodgment. Even more important are the new principles and concepts that the International Guidelines 2000 endorse: international guideline science, international guideline development, evidence-based guidelines, training by objectives, expanded scope of ECC to first aid and periarrest conditions, avoidance of false-negative (type II) errors, video-mediated instruction, and a philosophy to 'do no harm.' The number and magnitude of these new guidelines reflect the dynamic nature of resuscitation at the start of the 21st century. There is great optimism that these new and revised guidelines will help achieve our ultimate objective. This objective is to be ready when fate brings some lives to a premature end. If we are, we can restore more of these people to a high-quality life, ready for many more years of living.